This invention relates to chemically synthesized ribozymes, or enzymatic nucleic acid molecules, antisense oligonucleotides and derivatives thereof.
The following is a brief history of the discovery and activity of enzymatic RNA molecules or ribozymes. This history is not meant to be complete but is provided only for understanding of the invention that follows. This summary is not an admission that all of the work described below is prior art to the claimed invention.
Prior to the 1970s it was thought that all genes were direct linear representations of the proteins that they encoded. This simplistic view implied that all genes were like ticker tape messages, with each triplet of DNA "letters" representing one protein "word" in the translation. Protein synthesis occurred by first transcribing a gene from DNA into RNA (letter for letter) and then translating the RNA into protein (three letters at a time). In the mid 1970s it was discovered that some genes were not exact, linear representations of the proteins that they encode. These genes were found to contain interruptions in the coding sequence which were removed from, or "spliced out" of, the RNA before it became translated into protein. These interruptions in the coding sequence were given the name of intervening sequences (or introns) and the process of removing them from the RNA was termed splicing. After the discovery of introns, two questions immediately arose: i) why are introns present in genes in the first place, and ii) how do they get removed from the RNA prior to protein synthesis? The first question is still being debated, with no clear answer yet available. The second question, how introns get removed from the RNA, is much better understood after a decade and a half of intense research on this question. At least three different mechanisms have been discovered for removing introns from RNA. Two of these splicing mechanisms involve the binding of multiple protein factors which then act to correctly cut and join the RNA. A third mechanism involves cutting and joining of the RNA by the intron itself, in what was the first discovery of catalytic RNA molecules. Cech and colleagues were trying to understand how RNA splicing was accomplished in a single-celled pond organism called Tetrahymena thermophila. They had chosen Tetrahymena thermophila as a matter of convenience, since each individual cell contains over 10,000 copies of one intron-containing gene (the gene for ribosomal RNA). They reasoned that such a large number of intron-containing RNA molecules would require a large amount of (protein) splicing factors to get the introns removed quickly. Their goal was to purify these hypothesized splicing factors and to demonstrate that the purified factors could splice the intron-containing RNA in vitro. Cech rapidly succeeded in getting RNA splicing to work in vitro, but something unusual was going on. As expected, splicing occurred when the intron-containing RNA was mixed with protein-containing extracts from Tetrahymena, but splicing also occurred when the protein extracts were left out. Cech proved that the intervening sequence RNA was acting as its own splicing factor to snip itself out of the surrounding RNA. They published this startling discovery in 1982. Continuing studies in the early 1980's served to elucidate the complicated structure of the Tetrahymena intron and to decipher the mechanism by which self-splicing occurs. Many research groups helped to demonstrate that the specific folding of the Tetrahymena intron is critical for bringing together the parts of the RNA that will be cut and spliced. Even after splicing is complete, the released intron maintains its catalytic structure. As a consequence, the released intron is capable of carrying out additional cleavage and splicing reactions on itself (to form intron circles). By 1986, Cech was able to show that a shortened form of the Tetrahymena intron could carry out a variety of cutting and joining reactions on other pieces of RNA. The demonstration proved that the Tetrahymena intron can act as a true enzyme: i) each intron molecule was able to cut many substrate molecules while the intron molecule remained unchanged, and ii) reactions were specific for RNA molecules that contained a unique sequence (CUCU) which allowed the intron to recognize and bind the RNA. Zaug and Cech coined the term "ribozyme" to describe any ribonucleic acid molecule that has enzyme-like properties. Also in 1986, Cech showed that the RNA substrate sequence recognized by the Tetrahymena ribozyme could be changed by altering a sequence within the ribozyme itself. This property has led to the development of a number of site-specific ribozymes that have been individually designed to cleave at other RNA sequences. The Tetrahymena intron is the most well-studied of what is now recognized as a large class of introns, Group I introns. The overall folded structure, including several sequence elements, is conserved among the Group I introns, as is the general mechanism of splicing. Like the Tetrahymena intron, some members of this class are catalytic, i.e. the intron itself is capable of the self-splicing reaction. Other Group I introns require additional (protein) factors, presumably to help the intron fold into and/or maintain its active structure. While the Tetrahymena intron is relatively large, (413 nucleotides) a shortened form of at least one other catalytic intron (SunY intron of phage T4, 180 nucleotides) may prove advantageous not only because of its smaller size but because it undergoes self-splicing at an even faster rate than the Tetrahymena intron.
Ribonuclease P (RNAseP) is an enzyme comprised of both RNA and protein components which are responsible for converting precursor tRNA molecules into their final form by trimming extra RNA off one of their ends. RNAseP activity has been found in all organisms tested, but the bacterial enzymes have been the most studied. The function of RNAseP has been studied since the mid-1970s by many labs. In the late 1970s, Sidney Altman and his colleagues showed that the RNA component of RNAseP is essential for its processing activity; however, they also showed that the protein component also was required for processing under their experimental conditions. After Cech's discovery of self-splicing by the Tetrahymena intron, the requirement for both protein and RNA components in RNAseP was reexamined. In 1983, Altman and Pace showed that the RNA was the enzymatic component of the RNAseP complex. This demonstrated that an RNA molecule was capable of acting as a true enzyme, processing numerous tRNA molecules without itself undergoing any change. The folded structure of RNAseP RNA has been determined, and while the sequence is not strictly conserved between RNAs from different organisms, this higher order structure is. It is thought that the protein component of the RNAseP complex may serve to stabilize the folded RNA in vivo. At least one RNA position important both to substrate recognition and to determination of the cleavage site has been identified, however little else is known about the active site. Because tRNA sequence recognition is minimal, it is clear that some aspect(s) of the tRNA structure must also be involved in substrate recognition and cleavage activity. The size of RNAseP RNA (&gt;350 nucleotides), and the complexity of the substrate recognition, may limit the potential for the use of an RNAseP-like RNA in therapeutics. However, the size of RNAseP is being trimmed down (a molecule of only 290 nucleotides functions reasonably well). In addition, substrate recognition has been simplified by the recent discovery that RNAseP RNA can cleave small RNAs lacking the natural tRNA secondary structure if an additional RNA (containing a "guide" sequence and a sequence element naturally present at the end of all tRNAs) is present as well.
Symons and colleagues identified two examples of a self-cleaving RNA that differed from other forms of catalytic RNA already reported. Symons was studying the propagation of the avocado sunblotch viroid (ASV), an RNA virus that infects avocado plants. Symons demonstrated that as little as 55 nucleotides of the ASV RNA was capable of folding in such a way as to cut itself into two pieces. It is thought that in vivo self-cleavage of these RNAs is responsible for cutting the RNA into single genome-length pieces during viral propagation. Symons discovered that variations on the minimal catalytic sequence from ASV could be found in a number of other plant pathogenic RNAs as well. Comparison of these sequences revealed a common structural design consisting of three stems and loops connected by central loop containing many conserved (invariant from one RNA to the next) nucleotides. The predicted secondary structure for this catalytic RNA reminded the researchers of the head of a hammer consisting of three double helical domains, stems I, II and III and a catalytic core (FIG. 1 and 2a); thus it was named as such. Uhlenbeck was successful in separating the catalytic region of the ribozyme from that of the substrate. Thus, it became possible to assemble a hammerhead ribozyme from 2 (or 3) small synthetic RNAs. A 19-nucleotide catalytic region and a 24-nucleotide substrate, representing division of the hammerhead domain along the axes of stems I and II (FIG. 2b) were sufficient to support specific cleavage. The catalytic domain of numerous hammerhead ribozymes have now been studied by both the Uhlenbeck and Symons groups with regard to defining the nucleotides required for specific assembly and catalytic activity and determining the rates of cleavage under various conditions.
Haseloff and Gerlach showed it was possible to divide the domains of the hammerhead ribozyme in a different manner, division of the hammerhead domain along the axes of stems I and III (FIG. 2c). By doing so, they placed most of the required sequences in the strand that didn't get cut (the ribozyme) and only a required UH where H=C, A, U in the strand that did get cut (the substrate). This resulted in a catalytic ribozyme that could be designed to cleave any UH RNA sequence embedded within a longer "substrate recognition" sequence. The specific cleavage of a long mRNA, in a predictable manner using several such hammerhead ribozymes, was reported in 1988. A further development was the division of the catalytic hammerhead domain along the axes of stems III and II (FIG. 2d, Jeffries and Symons, Nucleic Acids Res. 1989, 17, 1371-1377.)
One plant pathogen RNA (from the negative strand of the tobacco ringspot virus) undergoes self-cleavage but cannot be folded into the consensus hammerhead structure described above. Bruening and colleagues have independently identified a 50-nucleotide catalytic domain for this RNA. In 1990, Hampel and Tritz succeeded in dividing the catalytic domain into two parts that could act as substrate and ribozyme in a multiple-turnover, cutting reaction (FIG. 3). As with the hammerhead ribozyme, the hairpin catalytic portion contains most of the sequences required for catalytic activity while only a short sequence (GUC in this case) is required in the target. Hampel and Tritz described the folded structure of this RNA as consisting of a single hairpin and coined the term "hairpin" ribozyme (Bruening and colleagues use the term "paperclip" for this ribozyme motif, see, FIG. 3). Continuing experiments suggest an increasing number of similarities between the hairpin and hammerhead ribozymes in respect to both binding of target RNA and mechanism of cleavage. At the same time, the minimal size of the hairpin ribozyme is still 50-60% larger than the minimal hammerhead ribozyme.
Hepatitis Delta Virus (HDV) is a virus whose genome consists of single-stranded RNA. A small region (.about.80 nucleotides, FIG. 4) in both the genomic RNA, and in the complementary anti-genomic RNA, is sufficient to support self-cleavage. As the most recently discovered ribozyme, HDV's ability to self-cleave has only been studied for a few years, but is interesting because of its connection to a human disease. In 1991, Been and Perrotta proposed a secondary structure for the HDV RNAs that is conserved between the genomic and anti-genomic RNAs and is necessary for catalytic activity. Separation of the HDV RNA into "ribozyme" and "substrate" portions has recently been achieved by Been, but the rules for targeting different substrate RNAs have not yet been determined fully (see, FIG. 4). Been has also succeeded in reducing the size of the HDV ribozyme to .about.60 nucleotides.
The table below lists some of the characteristics of the ribozymes discussed above: